I wish I could stand before you today and say that I am pleased to be here today to commemorate the 8year anniversary of the unjust arrest of Anatoly Shcharansky. but I am not. I am not pleased that a man whose only crime was to seek and promote religious freedom for himself. his family. and his people should be sentenced to prison for 13 years. I am not pleased that every year thousands of Soviet Jews are denied visas to leave the land of their persecution and are made to endure physical and mental hardship that can only rival Hitlers Germany. Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union has plunged considerably over recent years. Since the 1979 peak emigration of 51.320. Jewish emigration has dropped a shocking 97 percent. Yet the number of visa applications have greatly increased. There has become an alarming rate of Soviet official visa denials. In 1973. Anatoly Shcharansky applied for such a visa. He was denied as his position as a programer at the Moscow Research Institute for oil and gas. supposedly gave him access to "classified information." Two years later after repeated refusals. Anatoly was dismissed from his post at the institute.
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emigration visas visa